Marquette University released a statement on May 19 mourning the sudden death of Rev. Lúcás (Yiu Sing Luke) Chan, S.J., assistant professor of Theology. Father Chan died on Tuesday, May 19, at the age of 46.
A visitation will be held Thursday, May 28, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Church of the Gesu. The funeral Mass will begin at 4 p.m. with a reception to immediately follow in Eckstein Hall.
A Hong Kong native and Jesuit priest of the Chinese Province, Fr. Chan "dedicated his life to serving God and being a man for others around the world," wrote Marquette President Michael R. Lovell in a message to the Marquette community. Father Chan had been a faculty member in the Theology Department at Marquette for one year, previously having served and studied all over the world.
Lovell reported that Chan collapsed in Marquette Hall, noting that just last Sunday, Father Chan had offered the invocation at the Klingler College of Arts and Sciences graduation ceremony in The Al McGuire Center. “While he was with us on campus for just one year, he had a storied career, serving, studying and receiving his training in Singapore, Hong Kong, Britain, Ireland, Cambodia, Macau, the Philippines, the United States, Italy and Germany,” Lovell wrote in an email to the community.
Father Chan received his Ph.D. in theological ethics at Boston College in 2010. A recipient of post-doctoral fellowships from Yale and Georgetown universities, and a member of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Society of Christian Ethics, Father Chan served as a consultant to the Bioethics Committees of two Catholic hospitals in Boston, and as Asian Regional Director of Catholic Theological Ethics in the World Church (CTEWC).
Prior to joining the Marquette faculty, he held academic appointments at Trinity College Dublin, the Jesuit European Tertianship Program in Dublin, the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley at Santa Clara Univeristy and at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is survived by his parents, brother, sister and niece and nephew.
Joshua McElwee of National Catholic Reporter has a fine remembrance of Father Chan here.
